My Last Word On Pacquiao-Bradley

Regardless of what happened (or maybe didn’t happen) last time out, Manny Pacquiao is still on top of the boxing world. Alongside the momentarily incarcerated Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny is either 1a or 1b depending on who you ask, and nothing three rogue judges decided June 9th in Las Vegas changed that.

Since that fateful evening, the boxing community at large has undergone a massive shift of public opinion. As the disbelief of the decision has settled in, we as a group have seemed to move on from disgust to some quasi-sane reality where fight fans should disbelieve what they saw the first time and instead focus on every conceivable avenue possible to give Bradley the benefit of the doubt in every single round.

However, if you take the tinfoil hats off for a moment, stop locking yourselves in your rooms with the shades pulled down while replays of Pac- Bradley play on a loop (both with and without sound), several things may come to light.

First, it is absolutely clear that whether we like it or not, television announcers play a vital role in how we see a fight. There are numerous examples of this, and I’m sure someone smarter than me could put together some fancy double-blind scientific test to prove it.

It’s equally clear though, that television announcers don’t tell you what you see happening. You have eyes for that. If they tell you something that’s wrong, you can disagree. Without going too much into detail, it’s borderline ludicrous to suggest that somehow HBO’s broadcast team pulled the wool over the eyes of everyone that night, even people who watched the fight live.

Boxing writer Ryan Maquiñana posted his collection of scores from boxing media members after fight night, and his numbers suggest the outcry you read about on twitter, or heard in person from your pals at ringside or at your fight party, was spot on. It wasn’t localized to one place or one person or one method of seeing the fight.

It was a bunk decision, pure and simple.

In Maquiñana’s survey, fifty of fifty-three boxing media members (many quite well known and respected) had the fight scored for Pacquiao. Of the three who had it for Bradley, two of them had Bradley winning by a mere point. Moreover, of the fifty pro-Pacquiao cards, only seven of them had Pacquiao winning by anything less than six points.

That means forty-three of the fifty-three participants (over eight-one percent!) had Pacquiao the clear winner by a seriously wide margin.That’s exactly the fight most everyone saw the first time.

Since the fight, the fallout has gone from sure-fire robbery to well-maybe-it-was-close to oh-well-what-the-heck-maybe-Bradley-won.

I’m not buying it.

Look, it’s all well and good to question one’s scoring on a particular night. I’ve had my fair share of questionable cards in the past, too.And I assure you, it’s possible for the best and brightest to be wrong sometimes along with the rest of us. I’ve had cards in the past where I admitted I was probably wrong in my scoring after reviewing vast amounts of data that suggested it.

Case in point, I scored Cloud over Campillo from ringside when it happened. I was probably wrong. If the overwhelming evidence suggests the grass on your lawn is green, it’s green no matter how blue you may see it.You’re just colorblind.

I don’t buy the re-watch-a-thon approach to scoring fights. If you told me Cotto beat Mayweather on May 5th, I bet I could go back and re-watch the darn thing enough times to make my eyes bleed. By then, I’d give Cotto rounds Mayweather clearly won just to be true to my already erroneous and preconceived notion of “fairness”.

It’s quite silly if you ask me.

Almost everyone who saw the fight that night, from both ringside and on television, thought Pacquiao won the fight—everyone except for two of the three judges, and a very small subset of respected media members.Everyone else had it for Pacquiao, even the WBO judges who re-watched it for what seems to me like lip-service treatment (they cannot or will not reward Pacquiao the belt back). Even they couldn’t muster one measly scorecard to give the fight to Bradley. It was five to zip for Pacquiao.

So now that we’ve established what we all saw happen the first time, what should Pacquiao do next? One obvious choice would be a rematch with Bradley, right?

Wrong!

Who wants to see that fight? Pacquiao won handily the first time on most cards, and the fight wasn’t exactly a barnburner either. It was a boring, one-sided affair I’d rather not have to witness again. After Bradley tasted Pacquiao’s power in the early rounds, he decided it best not to engage him the second half of the fight. If that’s his big plan for the rematch (and it should be since he was bogusly rewarded for it by two of the three judges at ringside) then count me out on that one. Not even HBO’s 24X7 spectacle of hype could put enough lipstick on that pig to make it worth a penny to me. Let’s put it this way: Tecate’s rebate would have to pay me enough to come out ahead in the deal, and something tells me that’s not happening.

No, there is only one real fight out there right now for Pacquiao.With Mayweather in the pokey and Cotto coming off a loss and needing to rebound, only arch nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez stands any real test of reason.

Before their last fight, I took a lot of heat for telling anyone and everyone who would listen to me to just say NO to Pacquiao vs. Marquez 3.After all, Manny had moved up in weight so easily and effectively, and Marquez had struggled to win a round against Mayweather in his move up past 140. It was a total mismatch, I thought.

Boy was I wrong.

These two guys make beautiful music together no matter how you slice it. After seeing that one, they could fatten up to heavyweight, and I’d watch.They could sell me a ticket to Pacquiao vs. Marquez 10 live from Shady Grove retirement home, and I’d be there. I’d watch these guys fight on the moon if I had to.

And who knows, for all the cries of robbery against Bradley, Marquez fans might finally feel like their guy would get his due respect scoring wise.Every fight has been close. Maybe this time fight fans would finally see a definitive win for one of the competitors. While Pacquiao has won twice, and earned a draw once, in reality every fight has been razor thin no matter how you slice it, and Marquez has likely earned at least one win on his ledger if not more.

It’s Pacquiao vs. Marquez 4 or bust for me, and anything else would be almost as much of a waste as rescoring Pac-Bradley again to convince myself I’m wrong.

If by music you mean "Classical," then I'd agree about a Pacquiao vs Bradley 4. It might be a phenomenal composition, but have you taken a stroll through your radio stations lately? Go ahead and do that and keep score. Tally the number of popular music stations versus classical music stations? Popular is by demand. Classical is for an esoteric cult.

Radam G says:

Marquez fought to survive, he even virually quit fighting in the last two rounds. But the bout was still reasonably CLOSE. Marquez wasn't a closer.

Bradley fought to survive. He was never in the fight. He didn't even try to win. The bout was a Pac runaway. Bradley is just a darn POSER! And evil, hating powers that be used him, and gave him a victory. Da cowardly, muthasuckas love being coverted and latent.

I bet that they would never let Bradley fight light-punching Magicman Paulie Malignaggi, who would beat him like a drum. Holla!

deepwater says:

your last word and 50 cents will get you a copy of the ny post and not much else.

deepwater says:

forget this article. youtube beethoven scott getting killed in the ring and ask yourself, how did we get here?

gibola says:

I had it close to Pacquaio first time I saw it. The fight was broadcast on HBO and their commentary team and judge routinely score close rounds to Pacquaio both in this fight and Marquez3 and tell you (the viewer) he's won them clearly. It's because they are so biased that it's interesting to go back and watch again with the sound off. A lot of people saw the fight closer the second time because they stop being mesmerised by Jim Lampley's glowing account of his hero in action, and are actually taking notice of what Bradley was doing - Jim didn't even notice him in there. Yes, on watching again you are bound to take a slightly different perspective on things - some people saw it exactly the same, but a hell of a lot saw that a lot of rounds were close and even if you had Pacquaio winning there were a lot of disputable rounds. HBO's commentary team saw their man Pacquaio administer a one-sided beating with no close rounds, their perception of what took place was not shared by everyone (I had Pacman by 2pts) at the time and now virtually everyone admits that 119-109 etc is ridiculous. It's because the broadcast team got it so wrong that how you view it second time becomes so relevant. I can live with Manny winning the fight but I actually credit the judges - having it as a close win to Bradley is a closer reflection of the fight than having a shutout to Pacquaio. I maintain the real story of the fight (totally missed by HBO) is that Pacquaio is now officially, undeniably on the slide. The Manny of the Cotto fight would have knocked Tim Bradley out in five rounds or less. Pacquaio is ready to be taken, perhaps by Marquez, Khan or Bradley in the rematch, certainly by Mayweather, but unless he's knocked out for a count of 20 you can guarantee Harold and Jim will have him edging it on the official HBO card.

Real Talk says:

I got to watch this fight again. When it came on the following week I fell asleep on it....twice. I'm not saying the fight was boring but that's what happened. It did look like more of a contest what I did see the second time around, but I dozed off. The suspect thing about it though is HBO didn't put the fight on demand. Why is that? What ARE THEY TRYING TO HIDE? Timothy Bradley did apply some Science and boxing technique that looked to nuetralize Pacman but I still don't think he did anywhere near enough to take the strap. I need to watch it again like I always do. SHOW THE FIGHT ON DEMAND HBO!!!!! Dueces

Real Talk says:

It's crazt how Pacquiao turned his back on the world and dedicated his life to GOD an all of a sudden this happens. He speaks out against same sex marraige and says it's against his religious beleifs and gets robbed. He must've pissed of some Gays in high places. #IJS

Marquez fought to survive, he even virually quit fighting in the last two rounds. But the bout was still reasonably CLOSE. Marquez wasn't a closer.

Bradley fought to survive. He was never in the fight. He didn't even try to win. The bout was a Pac runaway. Bradley is just a darn POSER! And evil, hating powers that be used him, and gave him a victory. Da cowardly, muthasuckas love being coverted and latent.

I bet that they would never let Bradley fight light-punching Magicman Paulie Malignaggi, who would beat him like a drum. Holla!

SouthPaul says:

Article over at another site where Oscar De la hoya is offering Bradley all sorts of options. He throws out names of Amir Khan, Lil' Italy aka Paul Malignaggi, Robert Guerreo and Devin Alexander. All Bob Arum has to do is pick up the phone and call 'em (am quoting Oscar). Again I say folks; don't be misled into believing this is all Bob Arum's fault. He's part of it but lets not forget what a lying and manipulating coke head Oscar was and maybe still is. He lied thru his teeth about the cross dressing photos only to come out of the closet later. All these cats' word is suspect at this point, including the Golden liar of 'em all.

the Roast says:

Can it PLEASE be the last word?

brownsugar says:

Article over at another site where Oscar De la hoya is offering Bradley all sorts of options. He throws out names of Amir Khan, Lil' Italy aka Paul Malignaggi, Robert Guerreo and Devin Alexander. All Bob Arum has to do is pick up the phone and call 'em (am quoting Oscar). Again I say folks; don't be misled into believing this is all Bob Arum's fault. He's part of it but lets not forget what a lying and manipulating coke head Oscar was and maybe still is. He lied thru his teeth about the cross dressing photos only to come out of the closet later. All these cats' word is suspect at this point, including the Golden liar of 'em all.

Oscar is supposed to offer Bradley all kinds of Deals ...that's his job as a promoter and Bradley is worth some decent cash now that he has the controversial win. But it's doubtful that Bradley can capitolize as Arum won't easily deal with GoldenBoy, ...... Arum will probably keep Bradley On the Shelf until he can cash out Pac with Pac vs Bradley2... Since Bradley just officially became a welterwight. I wish they'd just all merge together like AT&T and Southern Bell, they could form a new company called "Rank-Golden-Boy-Tops" and consolidate 80% of active boxers in the U.S. alone. Probably too much to hope for.

Wouldn't it be great to get Bradley vs Berto, Ortiz, Kell Brook, or even Maidana?

jesster64 says:

Its funny, I believe most people also thought marquez won the 3rd fight, but there was no outcry. Bradley went the distance, by all accounts , each round was close. A rematch would prove once and for all if it was a fluke or bradley is that good. What if marquez wins, then what, pac/marquez 5? Give bradley some credit, he did enormously better than cotto, mosely,delahoya,margarito, and hatton.

ibrartariq says:

This Match seemed to be fixed. I would love to watch Manny Pacquio against Amir Khan.

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